714.1515/738: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Honduras (Summerlin)
58. The Department has given careful and sympathetic consideration to the views expressed in the note from the Honduran Minister for Foreign Affairs dated June 25,39 and appreciates the desire of Honduras fully to comply with its international obligations with respect to the arbitration of its boundary dispute with Guatemala. It is feared, however, that the reply of this Government to the inquiry [Page 754] of the Honduran Government as to the present effectiveness of the Arbitration Agreement of 1923, announced at the Conference on Central American Affairs, has not been fully understood.
In the reply of this Government just mentioned the opinion was expressed that the obligations implied by the 1923 Agreement may not be considered as precluding arbitration by the International Central American Tribunal provided for by the Treaty of 1923. This opinion was arrived at after reviewing the events of the past ten years during which, notwithstanding the existence of the Boundary Convention of August 1, 1914, and the Agreement of 1923, and the efforts at mediation during the years 1918 to 1920, no definitive settlement of the dispute had been achieved. It is to be noted in this connection that, although the 1914 Treaty was in effect in 1918 and still in 1923, mediation was resorted to in 1918 and a new agreement was concluded in 1923; thus demonstrating that the existence of other agreements with respect to the boundary has not been in the past and should not now be considered an obstacle to another course of action which promises a solution of the difficulty.
Please convey the foregoing to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and express the earnest hope of this Government that the Government of Honduras may soon signify its agreement to the proposal to submit the boundary dispute to arbitration by the International Central American Tribunal.
You may add informally that this Government has observed with surprise a reference in the note from the Honduran Minister for Foreign Affairs to “delays and difficulties perhaps unsurmountable which would arise in other procedures recently suggested.” It is confidently believed that the procedures established under the provisions of the Convention for the Establishment of an International Central American Tribunal are fully adequate to the present problem and offer a means for its speedy and equitable settlement.